The windows of vehicles, particularly road vehicles, are frequently held in place in the vehicle frame using rubber or plastics window sealing gaskets and which are sometimes known as sealing rubbers. The free edge of the sealing gasket commonly rests on a painted surface and when the vehicle requires to be painted or refinished, e.g. after an accident, it is difficult and time consuming to accurately place a masking strip along the edge of the window gasket. Commonly, the net result is that the paint either does not reach up to the edge of the gasket or, more often the gasket is coated at its edge with paint which needs to be cleaned off as a final step.
Swedish Patent Application No. 440982 describes a system for lifting window gaskets in which a round section strip is pressed under the gasket by feeding the strip through an applicator having a tubular guide. This system has not been successful in practice and there have been difficulties in accurately placing the strips beneath the gasket and also in the strip becoming misplaced or misaligned during the re-painting or re-finishing operation.